Category Archives: 2 – Recommended

Whistlepig – 100/100 10yr Straight Rye (50%)

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WhistlePig 10yrThe WhistlePig story goes like this: after an appearance on the second season of The Apprentice, and then a failed run for a Congressional seat in Pennsylvania, Raj Bhakta found himself hiking the greenways outside of Vail, Colorado. It was a balmy day, one so comfortable that Raj decided to unfurl his bow tie and take a nap next to the trail.

He began dreaming about a giant trampoline made of tits, with tits jumping on it and splaying out against the sky.They were soft and warm, and the sun was shining. Tits were raining down from the heavens and bouncing off his face. The dream seemed to go on forever… and then he was jarred awake from his dream by a disheveled, seemingly-French mountain-biker who was passing by.

The wild man stopped his bike, walked over to Raj and began shaking him by the lapels, screaming, “Could eet be a wheestle teet? You know… wheestle teet? Like this?”  He made a few puckering noises and undulated his hand before disappearing back down the trail. It was a bewildering moment, one Raj would never forget. I mean, “What the heck is a whistle tit?”

WhistleTits

Shortly after that, Raj met Dave Pickerell, a former Maker’s Mark distiller who had recently found what he declared to be the world’s best rye and was seeking an outlet to showcase his discovery. After Raj and Dave joined forces, they began to build their whisky company on a farm in Vermont.

Reflecting back on the disheveled man’s declaration, Raj chose the name WhistleTit… er… I mean, WhistlePig. Wait… um. Okay, so I may have gotten some of those details mixed up, or even made them up entirely, but whatever; this whisky is definitely the tits and it was, indeed, a wandering Coloradan’s bizarre inquiry that gave the distillery its name.

For the curious, whistle-pig is slang for groundhog… sweet, delicious groundhog.

Nose: Bright wintergreen floats over stone and honey. Golden Grahams cereal. Coconut suntan lotion. Mellow vanilla. Green apple peels and light citrus. Waxy Twizzlers, pencil shavings and uncooked instant oatmeal. Clean, pure and mild.

Palate: White pepper towards the end with nutmeg and honey upfront. All of the apple peels build up and make way for ginger vapors in the finish. Some of the suntan lotion makes its way to the palate, but leaves most of the coconut behind. 

Rating: RecommendedThe WhistlePig 100/100 is a very sunny whisky. It’s bright, clean and uncharacteristically mild for a rye; very accessible for someone who might not have developed a taste for the heady, knee-breaker rye whiskies. It’s aged in new charred casks first, and then in used ex-bourbon casks making it a hybrid of sorts, a milder rye without quite as much of the bold and cooling mouthfeel a straight rye usually exhibits.

I’ve seen it sell for $80 a bottle, but the most recent sightings I’ve made have seen it for around $60. It’s uniquely great stuff, but I still wish it were even $10 cheaper than that.

Thank you, Connor Burleigh, for the sample! Cheers!!!

Exclusive Malts – Bunnahabhain – 1991 21yr (52.6%)

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Exclusive Malts Bunnahabhain 1991 21yrBunnahabhain is a strange distillery to begin with. It’s one of the only two on Islay that doesn’t heavily peat their single malt. Single casks are usually atypical for the respective distillery, as well, so this is an atypical, atypical Islay.

Smelling it at first, I couldn’t find much in the way of traditional Bunnahabhain aroma. It’s cleaner, breadier and lighter overall. The Bunnahabhain really came out after I got to taste it, though.

Bunnahabhain just transitioned from a chill-filtered dram to a non-filtered one, so the flavor profile of the standard bottlings went with it in a heavier direction. This particular bottling is a bolder malt, but fruitier, more buttery and lighter than the current standard bottlings, like an unfiltered, cask-strength version of the old stuff, but with, you know… flavor.

Nose: Punchy. Irish soda bread. Hay and Coca Cola over musky wood. Honey over a handful of sour mash. Nori-wrapped apple slices with maraschino cherries, black licorice and light cloves. Rich and malty like the breeze passing through a brewery that’s also baking ultra-buttery croissants in back.

Palate: If the nose threw you off, the palate confirms this is indeed a Bunnahabhain. The dark grime of the official 12 is here but wearing a nice, licorice jacket so it seems much more refined. Steely for moments. Dilute pine sap, dark roasted apples and a bright, zingy mouthfeel that sticks around in the finish. Wine-y vapors trail it all with very, very mild peat on the tongue. I thought I tasted some cocoa powder as I was washing the glass after.

Rating: RecommendedBlack licorice and fruit make this typically grimy Islay stand out. Another well-chosen cask from the giants over at The Creative Whisky Company. Cheers!

Thank you Katia and Impex Beverages for the sample.

Exclusive Malts – Dailuaine – 1992 21yr (51%)

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Exclusive-Malts-DailuaineI had never heard of Dailuinane before this. Is that how you spell it? Duailanine? Dual-a-nine? Dail-a-ride? Dale, YOU in? Meh, whatever… and there’s not a whole lot of interesting information about them out there, either. Sometimes I get a little disenchanted with the lack of information I get with samples like this, so instead of wearing myself out I’m going to tell you a rambling story about the most inane part of the last 36 hours of my life:

I have terrible insomnia, so I try to rotate which sleep aid I use during particularly bad bouts of it, in the hopes that I won’t grow a tolerance to the drugs that actually work. Yesterday I was buying laundry detergent at Target and saw a pack of ZzzQuil. I love NyQuil and was kind of hoping it was as good at putting me to sleep but without the trippy stuff in it so I wouldn’t feel like a zombie the next day. Well, it turns out ZzzQuil is just a small dose of Benadryl, which makes me sleepy when I have to drive long distances or listen to my grandmother’s friends talk about church, but not when I’m lying in bed at night thinking of all the opportunities I had to say witty things I couldn’t think of at the time. So anyways, ZzzQuil sucks and I only got to sleep for three hours last night. But this morning, right around 10:00, I suddenly got really sleepy again. Like more sleepy than when I took the Benadryl the night before. So I came to this conclusion: I need to take ZzzQuil approximately 13 hours before I need to go to sleep. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it worked out.

Nose: Hints of wheat whisky, half a can of Lemon Pledge sprayed on an overgrown lawn and, in the distance, some gingerbread. Slightly masculine, yet floral. Rich malt. Ground fennel seed, cultured butter and highly-polished wood paneling. Clove and citrus pith. Sawdust and cocoa powder mixed 4:1. Those vanilla wafer cookies, no, not Nilla wafers, the crispy ones that looked like layered pizzelles filled with vanilla creme.

Palate: Beeswax, fennel seed, Oreo creme and orange rind. A little oil and a tad soapy. Surprisingly spiced but a tad woody after a few sips. Candied ginger and nutmeg give way to a lager-y finish with lingering clove. Murphy’s Oil starts to creep in after the last few drops are gone.

Rating: RecommendedThere are so many other amazing Exclusive Malt releases I would recommend before this, though it is certainly a unique single malt and  definitely delicious.

Thank you to Katia over at Impex Beverages for the sample!

Exclusive Malts – Glen Grant – 1992 20yr (55.7%)

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EM-Glen-Grant

Glen Grant is a huge single malt brand, though you wouldn’t know it by the presence it has here in the US. It’s supposedly very popular in Italy and has strong sales numbers around the globe. Originally started by two smuggler brothers, the distillery would later merge a handful of times before finally resting under the ownership of Campari. Like Glenmoranige, they use very tall stills to craft a smooth and less assertive single malt.

Exclusive Malts found this refill Bourbon cask that only yielded 212 bottles. K&L Wine was selling them for $99, though I’m not sure if that was a mistake and it looks like they sold out already. LoveScotch.org was retailing their’s for $157, but also sold out. I heard claims that this was supposed to retail for around $140, which sounds about right. Both of those vendors have a selection of other Exclusive Malts bottlings, if you’re interested in exploring the brand

Nose: Chicken feet boiled in white wine with one single clove for the initial whiff. The light sweet malt really picks up after a few seconds and then it smells like you’re standing at Whole Foods in front of the bulk cereal section. A haystack and a giant pile of fresh bean sprouts. Cranberries in white chocolate. Cedar and cider with a drop of pear. It definitely lets more caramel loose as you drink it.

Palate: Light and hot. Sweet pink peppercorns and guava. Cedar and gooseberries in ginger water. Effervescent with a sour finish like a Belgian white ale. The finish is also very peppery, as if you had been chewing a piece of fresh ginger, and in the long part starts to taste a little bit like the fresh beans sprouts from the nose. The hot mouth-feel sticks around.

Rating: RecommendedOverall a very nice malt! For a typically mild whisky, this one has a nice tropical fruit to it with a balanced savory side, and a lot of very aggressive pepper. Thank you to Katia over at Impex Beverages for the sample.

Cromwell’s Royal De Luxe Scotch Whisky – (40%)

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Cromwells Royal De Luxe Scotch WhiskyLots of things are happening lately. A handful of 10 year old Bourbons have been selling for $300 a bottle while no-age statement whisky is also flooding the market at all-time high prices. Macallan’s switch to a color scheme puts this once respectable company one short step away from labeling their different offerings with a sliding scale of smiley to frowny faces, the final nail in the dumbed-down coffin they think you’re stupid enough to crawl into. Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski look-alike reject, Jim Murray, self labels himself a prophet and the masochistic church of Jim just keeps getting bigger everyday. Robert Parker, author of the douchiest way to review subjective things like wine, the 100 point rating scale, steps into the whisky ring… and now this? I’ve read about this. These are the end times, folks. Prepare your Doomsday bunkers and bug-out bags because this shit is about to get real. Yes, I’m talking about Scotch in a box. Move over coffee, wine and dicks; there’s a new boxed commodity in town.

While wine can stay “fresh” for a little bit longer after opening it if you manage to keep the oxygen out of it, whisky lasts much longer, despite the air, rendering the bag useless for this purpose. So why is this whisky company taking fashion advice from the lush-wine industry? According to the label: the environment. Yea, I’m sure glass packaging is the real scourge here. If only I drank more boxed whisky maybe the sky wouldn’t be dumping three feet of snow on us at a time in between all the new tornadoes and ungodly heat waves. Ignore the daily, senseless gasoline purge; it’s the glass. And yes, I know glass weighs more so it takes more gas to ship… shut up.

Before I unload an entire clip on the fish in this bucket, let’s just get the obvious out of the way: there’s no such thing as good wine in a box. I mean, sure, people think it’s good, the way underage high school kids love Boone’s Farm or hipsters get all horny for PBR, but nobody is scrambling to get that ’03 vintage Franzia blush. Wine doesn’t mature well in a bag and the people who buy it that way are drinking with a much less noble intention than actually enjoying a nuanced flavor. So is it any surprise what I’m about to say regarding this whisky in a bag?

Cyrus and JesusThis is evil stuff; kicker of puppies Ann Coulter and eye-rolling mouthpeice Anthony Weiner had a baby and named it DMV, type evil; Elizabeth Bathory, Caligula and Mel Gibson having a tea party in H.H. Holmes’ notorious Murder Castle, evil; Miley Cyrus molesting Jesus in a box, evil. Knock on wood, spit three times and eat seven dates, this is 1.75 liters of the most insidious beverage mankind could produce and it’s out there… waiting… for $14… but it’s not evil for any of the reasons you think it is.

I came to the first glass with every intention of making fun of it for at least 700 words, but after tasting it something completely unexpected happened. Compared to the last three bottles of Scotch I paid less than $20 for, this is actually “good”. Now don’t go running to the store to wait in line and buy the place out, and don’t bother breaking out the Glencairn, because it is still stuff that retails for around $6 a bottle’s worth, but it’s downright evil, how easy it is to drink. It helps people who don’t know any better drink whisky the way irresponsible soccer moms have been drinking wine for years. It gives people less of a reason to explore the really good stuff. It’s cheap pee-yellow water that will get you very drunk. In fact, it’s cheaper than all of the cheapest liver-meltingly cheap vodkas I used to drink as a 23 year-old while managing to be a whole lot smoother. Now, that is evil.

Nose: Raisins! Along with sushi rice, horse and a little spent frying oil from a Chinese restaurant. A little yeasty and doughy with some of the bitter chemical you can expect in any cheap-o blended Scotch. If you search for it, you can find a little sweet malt. Things could be a lot worse, though.

Palate: Raisin Bran in the front and back of the palate; it feels like I’m drinking Raisin Bran vodka. Anise vapors. Traces of orange pith, stale banana chips and faint tequila. Mellow and a little chemically at the same time.

Rating: RecommendedI mean, sure it’s not going to win any awards, but it’s in a box. You have to at least try it. Worst case scenario you paid $14 to make your friends laugh for a couple weeks while you mix it with huge doses of Mountain Dew and ice to pass the time. But really, I’m giving this a Recommended rating because, hey, if you’re going to go cheap you may as well go all the way.

Glenmorangie – Finealta (46%)

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FinealtaI’m still a little weary after trying to find accurate information about the Ealanta. I’m skeptical that the label on that one was completely truthful. Were the casks really heavily charred as the label said, or were they heavily toasted as their press release indicated… or was this perhaps, a mix of both of them, toasted casks comprising the dominant share?

With that fresh in my mind, reading the Finealta’s label makes me wonder if the malt is really all lightly-peated, as it indicates, or if maybe they didn’t have a few moderately peated casks they loosened up with a few casks of the Original 10 and some Oloroso stock from the 18. It certainly smells plausible.

Knowing it’s there makes it very obvious, but if the label and ad copy hadn’t indicated this was lightly peated whisky it might have had me contemplating for a few moments whether the phenolic wafts were from the wood or the malt. It’s very light with the peat. It’s classically sweet, too, like most Glenmorangie’s are, almost too sweet. It’s like candied bacon; I’m not quite sure it should exist. I mean, bacon is good, and sugar is good, but together? I don’t know… then again, brown sugar and smokey bacon work just fine in a barbecue sauce, so maybe I’m over-thinking it.

Nose: At moments it has a subtle meatiness and tang, like a grilled hamburger with ketchup. A little papery, but still fruity. I can’t tell if it’s cherry or raspberry in this one… maybe both, but very reserved. Sweetly woody and mildly smokey, like a brand new camping trunk back from it’s first trip to summer camp. Mild iodine with house cat, lavender and memories of blowing into Nintendo cartridges. A tiny bit of melted vanilla ice cream over candied ginger and oatmeal cookies. The apricot is almost cloying in this context.

Palate: Oatmeal cookie concentrate and dark brown sugar rush in with smoked tomatoes en papillote. Savory copper middle notes. Hearts of palm, pinto beans and sweetened lobster bisque while it’s on the tongue. Very sweet for a peated whisky. Lime and a touch of tequila in the finish. Fried bread crumbs waft up from my chest after the sipping has been over for a minute. This would pair well with good Mexican food; maybe some Milanesa empanizada?

Rating: RecommendedI had a hard time choosing the rating on this one. It has a little of that tequila youth to it, but other than that, it smells and tastes great. Peaty whisky can stand a little youth and still be delicious, too. On the other hand, it’s a little unsettling for me to explore a peaty whisky that’s so damn sweet even though peated whisky pairs well with sweet foods. I guess I’m just not used to tasting so much of it in the spirit. In the end, I’d say for it’s unusual constitution, limited status and overall lack of fatal flaws, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but I could definitely recommend it.

Thanks to Gretha Smart and David Blackmore over at Glenmorangie for the bottle.